Guidance on Accommodation Overcrowding

The following is an extract from the IND manuals giving guidance to their staff about whether accommodation is overcrowded or not. If accommodation is indeed overcrowded then is is not classed as "suitable" and that fact would tend to mean that an application for a visa would not succeed.

I have posted this topic and made it a sticky because this subject keeps being raised on the Board. Having posted it I shall lock it so that it remains a source of information rather than a discussion document.

Guidance on overcrowding
The Housing Act 1985 contains statutory definitions of overcrowding in "dwelling houses". Dwelling houses covers both privately owned houses and those owned by local authorities. A house is overcrowded if 2 persons of 10 years old or more of opposite sexes (other than husband and wife) have to sleep in the same room, or if the number sleeping in the house exceeds that permitted in the Act.

The Act specifies the numbers permitted for a given number of rooms or given floor area. For our purposes we adopt the room number yardstick. Account is only taken of rooms with a floor area larger that 50 sq feet and rooms of a type used either as a living-room or bedroom; kit chens or bathrooms etc are not included.

Using the above noted yardstick, the following table provides guidance as to the acceptable (for our purposes) number of persons occupying a house with a stated number of rooms:

NO OF ROOMS ..... PERMITTED NO OF PERSONS
.......... 1 ................................. 2
.......... 2 ................................. 3
.......... 3 ................................. 5
.......... 4 ................................. 7.5
.......... 5 ............................... 10

with an additional 2 persons for each room in excess of 5.

A child under the age of one does not count as a person. A child aged 1 - 10 years will count as only half a person.

There are separate overcrowding provisions for a house in multiple occupation (HMO), which is defined as "a house, which is occupied by persons who do not form a single household". This very wide definition covers hotels and hostels, as well as houses lived in by 2 or more couples of different generations where they do not share common facilities. The most common occurrence of this is likely to be a man seeking entry to join his wife and intending to live with her independently in a house also occupied by her family. The definition therefore includes a house lived in by 2 or more couples (even if related) excluding dependent children of the couple.

There are no hard and fast rules concerning overcrowding HMOs. Local authorities have the power to serve an overcrowding notice in relation to a house in multiple occupation specifying the maximum number of people permitted in a house, or serve a notice to prevent any further residents. Where an overcrowding notice renders an occupier homeless the council may be obliged to provide accommodation under the Housing Act 1985 - if for example the occupier has dependent children, or is old or infirm. Such accommodation would, of course, count under the Rules as recourse to public funds. In the case of HMOs it may be necessary to obtain written confirmation from the local authority that there is no objection to an additional resident moving in but see paragraph 6.2 above.

NB It should be noted that under the Act local authorities have the power to licence temporary overcrowding.

MAA14 Overcrowding.

PART X OVERCROWDING

Further guidance.